Easter Brunch

Andrés

[how drunk are they when we join them?]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )

Andrés

Their morning began the same way so many other mornings have started for so many other of their brethren in Denver: with a text message that the sender may or may not have written under the influence.

I'm at [location] celebrating the Christian subjugation of a pagan holiday. You're welcome to join me.

Followed by like fifteen martini-glass emojis.

---

They've been sitting here a while. He is not drinking as if he's looking to get obliterated but, this being the second or third time she's drunk with him, Arianna knows well enough he isn't opposed to it if it ends up happening as a matter of course.

He's drinking Bloody Marias with a beer back. When Arianna got there he ordered tequila shots, claiming them to have stimulant properties.

Whatever they have been talking about has been of little consequence. Shit-shooting, mostly.

Then out of nowhere he says, "So I hear you met Grace."

His accent mangles the shit out of her name, short as it is. Comes out sounding like Gry-ees. There's a reason he calls her 'Gracia' instead.

Arianna Giametti

It is Easter Sunday. A God Child is risen, and the hope of nations is reborn.  Good sheep and their shepards have gathered under steeples to praise the good news, to become, if only for a moment, shining cities on the hill.  Arianna Giametti has grown up in shining cities, she knows the chafe of their yoke, she knows the allure of good news and rising in celebration.  So when Andres returns whatever wayward text she had sent when she was still pricking with anger the Mercurial Elite, and that return is an invitation to celebrate rising things?

She's in.  It spares her the oddity of attending services out of the compulsion of habit and culture alone.  Easter Brunch, too, is a special rite of Spring. And going out early enough for it puts them in the company of the sunrise services crowd, which will almost certainly avoid the tangle of accents and auras that wreath the Etherite and his Hermetic friend -- because they are, quite impossibly, becoming just that.  Not magickal colleagues; not mystical fellows; but people who enjoy the spectacle or brightness of each other's company.

Not every Easter Brunch invitation comes with fifteen martini-glass emojis.  One cannot let these things pass them by.

She is wearing something effortlessly beautiful and appropriate to the holiday. This will be the only part of the scene that is appropriate to the holiday.  She is drinking with him, bloody marias but without the beer back.  She is not a beer for breakfast sort; she doesn't judge him for it.  They have been discussing the quaint and beautiful (but also misguided) Easter traditions throughout their borrowed and owned cultures, and probably also some annoyingly niggly bit of liturgy or dogma that either of them finds particularly grating, or perhaps the weather, or perhaps it doesn't matter.

She is holding her knife and fork, cleaving some bite of something off the of the whole, when he mentions Grace. And look! Such self restraint, the knife does not become an athame; the knife does not become a wand.  Instead, Arianna bobs her head a little in confirmation.  She finishes her bite, chews, swallows, and sets down her utensils before answering.

"She is clever."  It does not sound like a compliment.  It sounds more like 'she thinks that she is clever'.  It sounds decidedly like a warning.  "And, perhaps, unacquainted with the concept of boundaries."

Andrés

Sepúlveda grew up in a Roman Catholic household. Had an intelligent hard-working mother who was nevertheless very religious and a father who was driven and stern but was rarely around thanks to his job. This holiday is not an anomaly for him, and he knows enough about the Easter rite to trash the shit out of it from a scientific perspective.

At any rate:

Arianna is actually eating food. Andrés does not bother with it.

"Well," he says to Grace's poor concept of boundaries. "Virtual Adept."

That goes without saying, to him. Their lot has an affinity for both the Correspondence Sphere and for hacking the shit out of other people's lives.

Arianna Giametti

Arianna is eating real food, because she does not quite have Andres's constitution, and also because it is breakfast time and she prefers some solids in her diet.  More than the solids that deck out the bloody mary, that is.

"Yes," Ari says. It's a leading sort of tone.  As if there is some sort of but coming after, some qualifier, and then no.  No qualifier. Just the acceptance that there is an entire Tradition of (impolite words go here)s out there, and they are all stuck dealing with them.  Her mouth purses into a displeased shape; as if something tastes bitter; and then that, too passes.

"I suppose she is thing to be dealt with.  Are there others here, or is she orphaned here."  This is not the nicest thing to say, with the overtones that word has for magi of a certain age.  It is an entirely unveiled dig at the absent Disciple.

Andrés

"Damn," he says with a touch of laughter behind it. "You don't wanna go asking her if she's orphaned, man, she doesn't strike me of the sort that would think that was too funny."

If he picks up on the fact that Arianna is taking a dig at Grace, he does not comment on it.

"I haven't met any others of her persuasion, but then, eh, I didn't think they ever went outside, so..."

Arianna Giametti

There is a touch of laughter behind Andres's answer. It matches the sharp yet warm mirth in her own.  He may not have noticed the dig, but he did entirely catch her meaning.  She waits until he has lifted his drink; waits to time this bit until she can catch his reaction by the loft of his eyebrows or the shape of his eyes alone.  They are more telling, some times, than words.

"She offered to turn my wand into a why-fie hot spot."  He can tell the words are more foreign to Arianna than they are to most.  "And then did... in a sympathetic sort of way."

This said, she takes another sip of her bloody mary.  It is a sizeable sip.  Hermetics tend to take grave personal offense to the intimation that someone might alter their personal instruments.  Certamen circles have been drawn for less.  Though Arianna seems to have found some sort of (dark [dangerous]) amusement in the circumstance of this re-telling.

Andrés

At the point they're at now, one or the both of them are going to be drunk off their asses in another hour.

It won't be the first time it's happened. They were both holding each other up when they left the bar the last time. If he hadn't dumped his device and taken off running they might not have wound up going their separate ways.

"If she fucked with your wand, she would've deserved whatever happened."

Glug. Oh shit. He tucks one empty glass near the bar well, then slams down the rest of his beer and adds that empty to the collection. It's slow. The bartender can take a hint.

Arianna Giametti

"Nothing happened," Ari says easily, but not with an aire of nonchalance.  She cares about this slight, however seemingly in jest it was.  And she explains to him why with the simplest of phrases.  "I will not comport myself poorly before your Apprentice."

A beat.

"Margot is quick-witted and sharp-eyed. I would hate for her to adopt bad behaviors so early in her Awakened career."  Her glass is not yet empty.  She is taking things a little more slowly this morning than he is.

Andrés

"That makes two of us."

One would get the impression that Arianna takes most things more slowly than does Andrés. She belongs to a tradition whose apprenticeship lasts for the better part of a decade. They pride themselves on their academic accomplishments and their mastery of a single Sphere. Sepúlveda belongs to a similarly academic tradition, but they have a reputation for doing whatever the fuck they want. At least once they have reached a certain point in their scholarship.

He has reached a substantial point in his scholarship. He would never have taken Ned or Margot as his apprentices if he had had much of a say in it. He could have told them to hit the road. They are not anyone to whom he would have given Kitab al-Alacir. And yet here they are.

"She troubles me, sometimes."

Oh hey here's the bartender yes he would like another Bloody Maria with a beer back oh also might as well do another round of tequila shots sorry Arianna.

Arianna Giametti

In truth, many Hermetics do whatever the fuck they want after reaching a certain point in their scholarship as well. They are just more, well, formal about it.  And it comes with a certain sort of consequence.  Arianna has been doing whatever she wants for quite some time now and the consequence seems to be that she still only holds the rank of Initiate Exemptus in her early thirties.

She also does not have any Apprentices.  Point one to the Italian?

"I can see that.  She has a certain feel about her, and a strong will."  This is different from the capitalized form of the word.  "How did you come to be her Master?"  Arianna wonders if this word will get the same sort of surprise and shock from him as it did from Margot; Margot who then passed it off as easily as 'oh, Hermetic.'

Andrés

"She and Edward, her friend, I think this was his bright idea--thank you."

This to the bartender who has come bearing alcohol. She says she'll be back with the beer. He assents. Though he puts the tequila shot in front of her he does not insist that she take it. All Andrés does is lift his own and mumble something about how He has risen in Spanish before tipping it down his throat.

Anyway:

"Edward asked around the hospital, where he had seen me, to see if anyone knew who I was, and someone did! They sent him to the morgue! And he brought with him Margot! And they told me, in their own ways, they were new to this, and they had no idea what they were doing, and after the ulcer began to burn itself into my stomach, I told them I would keep an eye on them until they found their own persuasions, or decided to declare themselves free of such."

Come here, Bloody Maria.

Arianna Giametti

Yes, verily, he has risen: the answer comes in Italian.

The tequila, then; a shot taken in camaraderie.  "It is good of you to look after them; noble even.  Quite a heavy thing to bear.  Let me know if I can help you help them find their way to their Traditions."

Because this is what friends do: drink, and offer to help you with your problems. Apprentices, man, they are straight up problems.  "Do you think either of them suited to the Order?"  This, then, asked in shrewd self-defense.  For if Edward had a leaning, Ari knows of better recruitment officers than herself.

Andrés

Drunkenness more than self-control keeps him from rolling his eyes when Arianna accuses him of nobility in sheltering a couple of otherwise-Orphans when he was not prepared to do so. He who lost his wife and contact with his only surviving child in the last year. One would think he would have clung to them like lifelines after something like that but his insanity belies a sort of self-awareness. He knows he isn't good for Ned and Margot. Not in the way they're looking for him to be good.

Does he think either of them suited to the Order.

He snorts so hard that if he had had any liquid in his throat at the time it would have come out his nose. It still causes him to snort and then cough and then belch. Attractive.

"We should probably talk about this somewhere else," he says. "¿En mi casa o en la tuya?"

Arianna Giametti

Aha.  Well, two birds then, one stone.  Relief that neither temporary-Disparate has leanings toward her ilk, and amusement that Andres almost snorted bloody mary in his surprise. 

"Lo siento.  La mia casa non ha mobili."  Mixed languages, man, these two are going to be a hit at the inevitable future Mage Meet-ups.  Sitting in the corner, sharing a flask, bitching about everyone in a mashed up language all their own.

"And I have some other things to attend to today, which require more sobriety than I currently have on hand."  The smile, it is knowing.  And she does not have the requisite Ars to simply wish away a headache or a hangover.  The social graces and subterfuge skills to pretend it isn't there? Yes. But to banish it in fact and truly? No.  Not yet, and perhaps not ever.

"But yes, we should talk more.  Soon?  And if you like I would speak to your neophytes.  You should not need to be alone in minding them; I'm sure Nicholas or Penelope will feel compelled to help at the very least."  Aha.  This then. Her cabalmates, the do-gooders.  Ari is sure they will help; which means Ari will help; Ari will not help directly.

There is a table to settle; she manages this readily.  There is the matter of navigating out into public; again, handled, with a certain sort of grace. And the parting of ways, three kisses upon cheeks and all the appropriate greetings for the morning: He is Risen, go forth and spread God's Good News; verily he is Risen, Good News also unto you.  All of this, with the panache of people from cultures that are more vibrant, less restrained, and very likely to impinge on others' personal space with their gesture-words.

Celebratory cups

Ari

Things have been happening lately, and the Silver Bough has not necessarily been in lockstep over them.  They have not always gone shoulder-to-shoulder into the night.  Arianna has been working through the particulars of securing a place of her own, through the appropriate shell entities, with the appropriately Hermetic levels of concern.  Houses cannot simply be purchased at Smart and Final and plunked down wherever there is space.  It requires a damnable amount of paperwork, all traceable by unsavory sorts, and therefore a requisite amount of patience and forethought.

Nick and Pen have been, you know, saving the universe.  Or some Disparate.  equally risky, and with variable rewards.  Which may be more straightforward than mortgages.

They have been missing each other for a few evenings, and it leaves a sort of hollowness to her heart.  Even though they are just recently re-united, Nicholas and Pen are the family of her heart, if not her flesh, and also of her mind, if not always being of-a-mind.

It is late afternoon, and the snow has been coming down for days, and Spring does not at all seem to have sprung -- not efficiently, not effectively -- but rather ushered in a sense of disbelieving restlessness, of thwarted becoming. It is in keeping with the mood she brought home from her encounter with the Mercurial Elite (Elitist).  It is something she has tried to actively put from her mind, so that now -- as she stands, darkening the doorway to Nick's study, with an unopened bottle of champagne in one hand (he should recognize it readily) and two plastic coupes (it was all she could find on short order [it is the only appropriate shape]), stems of which tangled in her fingers, leaning a shoulder into his doorjamb, all lazy and unimpatient and carefully unexpectant -- now she seems to be just Ari, as she always is, mouth quirked as if he caught her halfway through a smile, barefooted and watching him with a tangle of fondness and mischief and mirth wrapped into the green of her eyes.

Even idle, she is anything but idle. The stars, you see, they stand still for no one.

Nick

It's unusual, how diligent Nicholas has been in his magickal studies.  Ari would not have recalled him as such: frequently, even before he went overseas and returned heartsick and weary, even before he fired a graven bullet into their onetime cabalmate, he was more given to exploring, to trial and error, to it'll-come-to-me-when-it-comes.  These days, there are more books (borrowed, though) in his study related to things of a magickal nature than there used to be.  These days he is at once more somber and also beginning to unburden his heart, this seeming paradox.

So she'll find him, scion of Air and Darkness, in his study which is bounded on one side by falling snow.  The black of his hair is thrown against that backdrop, and maybe it'll strike anyone who looks why dark ebony and driven white are things paired together in fable.

There is a book in his lap and he is seated in a low-backed armchair, his legs crossed beneath him.  More circles, more collections of Umbral lore.  Maybe in some ways marrying and cabaling with Hermetics has been good for him.  That's the purpose of a multi-Tradition cabal when you think about it, isn't it?  The thing that Rob was getting at all those years ago?  (Was it?)

As Ari appears in his doorway, Nick looks up from his reading, his hazel eyes bleary from too long peering at hand-written ink.  Such books as they read: frequently haven't been reproduced by printing press (though that does happen sometimes.)  More often it's a collection of lore passed down by mouth and scribed here, going back and back and back to the first magi, whoever they were.  There is this delay in how his expression shifts (his thoughts are still trapped on the page, even if he has looked up) until he notices the champagne in her hand, and the two plastic goblets there tangled in her fingers.

"You saw my gift, I see," he says.  And then, "We don't have to drink it.  I had just imagined you might break it over the headboard of your bed."

Ari

"Hah!"

Something he has said, it pleases her. It teases something warmer than the wry and twisted smiles out of her.  There is an element of surprise to it, as she has been genuinely taken aback by some suggestion. The arm carrying the coupes crosses her middle, her ankles cross as she leans more into the doorjamb, as if she could become some languid grace against it, gild it in silver: stay.

"Oh, Nicholas," fondness here, and also amusement, and marks of a life lived long before theirs became entangled, all of it wrapped around the syllables of his name, all of it to make his name more resonant and shining.  "That maiden voyage came long ago for me, but I will drink with you in celebration all the same.  To revelry, of one sort or another."

She holds the neck of that bottle with practiced ease.  It is one of the many privileges about her; this comfortable acquaintance with insouciance; this certainty whilst seeming cavalier.  The bottle is in no sort of danger.

She is, also, well acquainted with the peculiar struggles of studying from no-longer primary documents, but ones whose serifs and ligatures have evaded the execution of more automated means.  The things that sit in the place-between -- not resonant with history, not modern in their ease.  She is trained to read them as easily as he might mark the flow of water.  So this regard, careful and not entirely intrusive, this little look from across the room brings a sort of sotto frown to her brown and a bowing of her lips and --

"My library will be here soon. Once I am certain that my home will be secure.  I do not know that it touches upon your interests, but you will be welcome to it." Her voice is kept low at this, as if secrets pass between them; as if it is a thing she will not announce loudly or loft to the trees that steeple above, or shout into the snowfall.  Her Library will be here, at least a corner of it.  It will be open to him.  It will also be, at least, more beautifully lettered, more reliably scribed.

Nick

"Ari," shock in the syllables of how her name is pronounced, here, as though he is disbelieving, when she tells him that the maiden voyage came long ago.  Of course he is not; Ari is slightly older than he is, and for all that he might sometimes be mistaken for one Nick is no Chorister and certainly no monk, nor does he expect it of others.

Of course, he had not known for certain why she'd been absent, though he'd suspected: thus, the champagne.  Ari's response here though confirms what up until now had been his suspicions.  "I meant to assume less a maiden voyage than new beginnings.  'Childhood friend,' huh?"

And here he shuts the book and beckons her forward into his study.  Much of the furniture that was Nicholas's alone before he became part of the unit Mars and Hyde has an air of salvage, of old ruins that were beautiful once reclaimed and put to new purpose.  One of the bookshelves in his corner is an old canoe, sawed off at the bottom and carefully hollowed in places for shelves to rest; his desk is an old pitted solid thing that he has been meaning to sand down and restain forever but has not.  A carpet, whorled with black and grey and green, covers the floor (and the burnt circle beneath.)  Photos are placed in a collage of color and form on the walls; some are framed and some are not.

"A lot of things touch upon my interests," he says, because there is still a bit of the Disparate in Nick.  He never forsook the more shamanic understanding he carries of magic when he was initiated into his Tradition, and he still borrows now where it makes sense.  "I've been...well, I've been interested in exploring True Names, lately.  Pen talks about them so often."

Ari

'Childhood friend,' huh?

"There may be a bit more to that story..."  She seems more comfortable with it now than she had at wing night, this intersection of her past and present, of Nick and Pen and this childhood friend.  His reaction deepens her amusement, it creases at the corners of her eyes and keeps a lightness to her step when he bids her enter.  She has a way of seeming very much at home wherever she is bound by books, or symbols, or languages and Nick's study, with its unorthodox shelves and rescued things, is no exception.

"Names are important," she agrees, and in agreeing with him on this, she is also of a mind with with Pen.  Here, this echo could bring forward a note of frustration from the week before: it doesn't, but that experience does guide her toward caution.  "Even in lore beyond our own, in faery stories, among the deepest things that man has known, they are important."

Ari finds a place to settle, and nestles the bottle in against her hip. Canted just so, caught between the arm of some chair and the sweep of her skirt.  The coupes still dangle, in mock danger, from her fingers. 

"What do you think about them?  How does Naming fit into your estimate of things?"

Nick

"I like stories."  Nick leans over to carefully, carefully tip the book onto his desk with a meaty, weighty thunk.  The pages, brittle and no longer bone white but yellowed now, rustle as they settle.  His hands find his ankles, crossed beneath him, and tuck them in farther.  It is unintentional but there is something youthful about it, something of a child sitting at the feet of a grandmother or wise school librarian.

Ari has found another armchair to settle in, or perhaps Nick's desk chair, this massive wheeled thing of cracked red leather, probably a castoff from the office of some New England executive to whom it had outlived its usefulness.  It is still sturdy, and there is still a faint fragrance that arises from it when touched.

"I believe a Name is the essence of that thing," Nick says.  "And that knowing the essence or nature of a thing gives you power over it.  There's power in the Naming."

Ari

"And what sort of story would you like today?" she asks, finding some flat and certain place to set the coupes, glancing only halfly over at him because she is busy with her task -- because she is busy being clever, and not yet ready to give the whole of a thing away.  (Not yet ready to Name it, Ari?)

It is this desk chair she has alit upon, calling up the scent of worn leather and passing time; it is a fitting thing to have heavy in the air around her when they speak of Names and also of Silas.  It pleases her.  So much of the circumstance around her conversations with Nick pleases Ari; perhaps this is what Rob had been aiming at, all those years ago, on the shore, in the moonlight, drinking rum and, hah!, also in his short clothes.

Ari has a certain effect on people.  Some times they end up sitting in the sand in their underpants.  Stranger things had surely happened. Out of context, it is an amusing thought.

"Can Names be bestowed on things?  On even things that are not in keeping with the Name itself?" she asks.  It is a thing she has considered, and come back to, within her own studies. What controls the truth of a thing, essence, intent, Name, Will?  Murky waters.  These questions are sent off into the stillness of his study (hallowed ground), whilst her quick and nimble fingers begin to unravel the foil obscuring the cage and cork.

Nick

The surface Ari finds upon which to set the coupes appears to have once been a sewing table, probably from some factory; the bottom is heavy, iron-wrought and dark as sin.  Wood panels have been set into the top to provide a more appropriate living surface than the original would have.  His study does not necessarily follow a theme in terms of design or color, and to the casual eye it would appear hodgepodge.

Nick has tilted himself just slightly to face her where she has perched upon his desk chair.  Nick's frame, which is slim but not necessarily spare, appears slight when he seats himself in it, as though he were a young prince who'd just climbed into a throne as yet too large.  Ari, the chair dwarfs.  "Tell me a story about separation and reunion," he says, because: this is the place where all stories begin, back at the beginning.

She speaks of murky waters, and his eyes drift to the side somewhat; he will revisit these concepts she puts before him soon, perhaps in his own mind or perhaps in books he acquires.

"I think they can be bestowed on things," he says.  "We have new concepts emerging all the time.  How else would we find words for them?  As for things not in keeping with the Name...I guess part of the essence of a thing is in how it dresses itself and presents itself, around its core.  So why not."

Ari

He answers and the words give her pause, as they often do, as they have so many times before. There is a small and thoughtful sound that perches, just so, hung on some decisive place within the staves, like a bird on a wire, though not quite like a crow on a limb -- this sound and then, with a twist of her hands, a pop!  So practiced: just like that the cork comes away in one hand, the gas curling away from the mouth of the bottle she holds in the other, all in an instant without struggle or calamity.

And to think, some people are anxious about popping champagne corks.  Some people manage to put out their eyes.  Not Ari.  She pours the first coupe and hands it to him, with steady hands, surface prickling with bubbles, all lively, active in its revelry. Once he takes it, she pours another for herself and encourages the bottle to rest somewhere between them, where he might be able to take it up as his basin shallows and he becomes in danger of running aground on the empty shores of his celebratory cup.

"Then let us Name this 'A Happy Tale', in hopes that it grows toward that more than any other essence.  And I will tell you of a separation and also of a reunion.  And you can say whether the essence and the art of it are in alignment..."

While he decides upon his answer, though this is Nicholas, whose soul is polished and made brighter by the consumption of stories, who is less the Morrigu at times than a voracious reader of lives and knower of secrets -- or, perhas, that is precisely what the Morrigu demands -- while he gathers up his answer she arranges herself in the vast country of the over-large chair, legs drawn up and tucked in beside her so that she is canted over one arm, leaned into the wing-back of his edge.  She looks impossibly comfortable in it; the red calls out the green in her eyes.  It is like Nick and the snow, the contrast of it; the lack of contrast between Ari and the warmth of rich colors and rich textures is equally striking. She belongs.

Nick

This pop of the champagne cork, and there is a reflexive twitch from the Chakravanti. It's true that Ari makes popping the cork look easy, tugs it away from the bottlemouth without shattering one of his windows or giving him a black eye.  Had Nick pulled the cork it would not have been so gracefully done, and both of them may in fact have been in mortal peril.

He takes the glass from her, waits until she has poured for herself, and then holds his glass out toward her.  There is this air of devilry there, amusement as he waits for her to tip her glass against his before he drinks.

"So tell me a happy tale, then," he says, and settles back into his chair.  Perhaps at times secrets are what is demanded; Old Gods, after all, are shadowy things, with so much of what they were lost to time.  It leaves the mage to chisel him or herself out some space within it, to retain what makes them who they are: and if it pleases his Avatar too, so much the better.

Ari

For the truly impressive and celebratory opening of bottles, there is sabreing.  Ari's is more expediant, and less wasteful, but it gives up a lot of panache.  Someday, maybe, someone would open a bottle of champagne with a sword at Ari's wedding -- maybe the impressive and terrifying Paolo Giametti himself -- but that is getting ahead of the story she wishes to tell. Or has found herself telling, despite her better judgement.

"I've told you a bit about this childhood friend before," she says, it is a way of introduction. There is a careful way that she does not speak his name, or give away his features -- this friend is almost anonymous, even in the intimate retellings or allusions she has shared with Nick. Perhaps it is a thing that sticks in his craw, to worry at, to get into the meat of later.  Perhaps it isn't.  But he remains diffuse and unclear all the same.  "His family, like mine, is infamous in certain circles.  His mother and my father are of a House and therefore occupation and so we were often cast together, at school, at conclave.  He was a steady, if not a permanent, fixture in my childhood."

So this, this is how a happy story begins: familiarity, common ground. The details remain diffuse; she does not fill in the margins for him.  Neither does she watch Nick's expression as she shares.  Ari's attention is for the tiny bubbles streaming toward the plane of the liquid in her glass.  As if she could scry the past in it; as if it would make it simpler to speak of.

"When he came to conclave, we spent our time together.  I was a better student then, but still not overly fond of long hot afternoons in classrooms.  We had adventures, and snuck out late in the evening -- we did the sort of things troubling Apprentices do, with all the privilege of being heirs to ancient names.  But when the War came, he went to stay with his Aunt and Uncle.  My mother and I went to another Chantry, where it would be safer. 

"I remember looking after them as they left, his mother like a Fury, the aegis of her Will around them, my father's wrapped tightly around me as we broke off in another direction.  I was not awake, but I was aware enough to mark it.  I didn't think we'd see each other again. 

"This was the first separation, and it was terrible."

She pauses, takes a small sip of her champagne, and glances over to Nick.  In case he has questions, or promptings.  She is not quite sure how offerings to his Old Gods go.

Nick

Ari's eyes are for the little bubbles that stream up from the bottom of the coupe, effervescent.  Nick's eyes are for her.  It's not intense, this way in which he watches her; his eyes are not seeking hers out to grab and root them the moment she glances in his direction.  Instead he notices the sweep of her hair, the way she stares into her own glass, the cast of her features and the lines of her hand and arm and the ease of which she sits in his office chair.  It's careful attention, casually intimate.

He sips from his glass and listens, and if Ari were to look over at him at any point (which it has been stated she's not) she'd find him expressionless save for this reflective look.  The diffuseness here he does not mind; Nick is never so interested in the details as in the root of what is being said and shared.  These are the things that have meaning.

"So the War caused your paths to diverge the first time.  When did you meet again?"

Ari

Arianna is used to being watched.  Nick is different, though.  She is unused to being seen.  It had surprised her about Kestrel, even after all the years that they had known each other.  She wonders, quietly, if Nick knows that this is part of how he won her over on the whole multi-Traditional cabal thing.  Which hadn't worked out as anyone had foreseen.  So there is a mild sort of pricking to the sense of being watched so completely, even if it is in apparent abstraction. 

"In our late teens.  He had Awakened and I had not, so we were reunited but only in part.  Our studies were separate and he had," there is a small sound; even after all these years the thought provokes a sort of mild irritation in her, "Garnered the attention of many followers."

She twists the stem of the glass in her fingers, it swirls the liquid, the bubbles continue to rise. 

"I was a foolish girl," she tells him. With a little roll of her eyes for her past-Self.  "So were close again, very much so, and it was good for awhile.  But he was foolish, and I am quick to anger, and that does not bode well.  It went as it had to go." This last phrase is roughly translated from another tongue. She says it first in German, then struggles a bit with the English sentiment. It resolves the story the same either way:  "So we were separated again; and it was bitter."

Nick

Here's a thing about Nicholas: he is perhaps too modest to ever imagine that he, personally, in any way shape or form had any influence on whether Ari joined their multi-Traditional cabal.  This is not low self esteem, precisely; it is simply that when Nick thinks back on that time, he has a hard time imagining that then or now other people give him much thought at all.  If they do, it is frequently in the context of what he can do for them.  He, too, is not entirely used to being seen.

There is understanding there for the things Ari says: many followers, she was a foolish girl, they were close again.  He's good at piecing together the unsaid parts of the story, and yet at the same time he wants to hear her say them.

He has tucked his feet up and under him on the chair; they are bare and his toes are visible, pink and bare, where they poke out from under him.  He takes another swallow from his glass.  "What foolish thing did he do that angered you, back then?"

Ari

Nick asks, and Ari takes a moment before she answers.  Her gaze catches on the silver band around her finger, but only momentarily.  He asks so easily and she endeavours to answer equally easily, as if these things were distantly in the past.  They are; but hurt has a way of shallowing up the depths so quickly.

"I found him kissing another girl in the hallway between classes."  It sounds so pedestrian. So normal for teenagers and high school. "It wasn't more than a few days after we had..."  She didn't finish the sentence with words, but rather looked over to the champagne bottle, then to Nick, with a mirthless sort of wry quirk to her mouth and an uncharacteristic flatness in her eyes.  He was bright; he could easily finish that thought.

"I responded as you might imagine.  He claimed innocence in one manner or another. I did not believe him, neither would back down.  We spent years angry at or avoiding one another --" No. Ari's expression walks that back a little. "I spent years angry or avoidant.  He found calmer waters in which to set sail."

Nick

It sounds pedestrian and normal for teenagers, and yet Nick well remembers that time.  That he spent much of late middle school skipping classes and devouring attention from whoever would give it to him, that often as not those people were older than he was because that is so often how these things go.  Ari is unlikely to know these specifics, but enough to realize that he perhaps understands on some level.  Mundane and part of the teenage years: those things can still hurt, and they don't always stay distant.

"It sounds like you're blaming yourself a little for the outcome," Nick says, with a sip from his glass.  It's an observation that is perhaps not welcome, and could potentially derail her story.  Nonetheless, it's not within Nick to let such an observation go unspoken.

Ari

"That's because I am," she tells him evenly. Even with a bit of self-deprecating smirk to it. Which is not an expression Ari wears very often amongst her closest of friends.  "He tried to apologize many times over, but I continued to hold it against him.  I think, at some point, the initial insult is overcome by years of ingracious treatment.  Wouldn't you agree?"

But she shrugs a little at this, too, as if it is of little consequence in the greater whole. Which is patently untrue; but convenient short-hand.  

"I am a terribly jealous woman, as it turns out," said easily, and not quite with the appropriate aire of self-awareness.  "There is a reason there have been no others.  Love is neither gentle nor kind to me.  I cannot open myself time and time again to that; there cannot be many who hold such tyranny over my heart."

It is, perhaps, the first time in a very very long time Ari has used the word Love in such a serious context.  To mean something different than the love she has for Nick and Pen, for Rob even, and Thane.  Different than filial love.  Not a stand in for lust or physical attraction.  It may be something of a revelation to Nick how apt his gift was, how momentous this reunion may truly be.

Nick

"I think when we feel betrayed we feel betrayed," Nick says.  There is thoughtfulness here, for both what Ari says now and for what she says after, for how she describes the hold this unknown man has over her.  Nick has not met Silas; he has not seen Silas and Ari together, and all he does is accept what Ari says for what it is.

"Ari, I know you very well.  I think that you don't trust very easily, and you don't allow people close to you very easily.  And trust is a difficult thing even for people who do it often.  I think it - well, it makes sense to me that you would expect the same loyalty of others that you give to them."

He, too, now, is watching the bubbles as they filter up from the bottom of his glass.  "Which isn't to say that I'm not glad you've reunited with this person, because I am.  But I'm asking you as your friend to be gentle with yourself."

Ari

"To be gentle, or to be cautious?" she asks him, and it is clear from her tone that one is nearly as impossible to her as the other.  It is also clear that his sentiment is unusual, unfamiliar.  This isn't a matter of language, how impossible his request seems to be for her to parse; it is deeper, almost cultural in its foreign nature.

Nick

There are times - ah, yes.  Nick is talking to a Hermetic, and at times he forgets this, forgets how deeply ingrained it is in them to be unforgiving of themselves, even the people they were in the past.  Of course, it isn't just Hermetics: many people are like this, and it is something Nick is good at noticing.

So he only smiles, and gives a little swirl of his glass to send the bubbles cascading up and around into a light foam.  "I choose my words carefully too," he tells her.  "You should think on it."

But here, that could have some sting if he left it, so he moves past.  "So that was the last time you saw your friend, and now you just ran into him again."  Prompting, here, for where the story left off.

Ari

A point to the Chakravanti. Ari lifts her glass a little in recognition of it, and the smile she offers spreads a little more completely into her eyes.

"Ah, no.  Were that the last time, we would likely not be celebrating with champagne and stories."  This, then, finally brings some sort of mischief and laughter back to her. "The last time we saw each other was..."

A quick counting on fingers: six... seven... eight. No, her brow creases, then recants.

"About eight years ago.  We were still young, but not as young as all of that.  I was recently Awakened, so we were nearer one another in standing again.  I was Indifferent and he was Charming, of which I naturally did not approve.  But then he was unexpectedly candid and apologetic, and I was uncharacteristically willing to listen -- and we worked a few things out."

This, then, is where her gaze lingers a little too long on that ring.  Where it is now on her ring finger and not encircling the middle one.  It is more significant now than it has been for the bulk of her friendship with Nick. 

"We decided then that when we were together, corporeally in time and space, then we would be monogamous with one another.  And when we were separated by circumstance or distance, that we would lay no claim to one another.  So here we are, both in Denver, and time does not seem to have dulled our oaths to one another."

Surely this is the sort of agreement that only Hermetics could concoct.

"And that is your story of separations and reunions, and it is happy in the ending. Is it not?"

Nick

It is perhaps not the sort of ending that Nick had expected to the story, though it explains Arianna's ring.  Truth be told, Nick had never thought much of the ring or its significance to her, or where she wore it; he has never been the sort of man who placed a heavy amount of significance on weddings or rings, and indeed until he married Pen had expected that he would never marry at all himself.

Ari offers her explanation of the agreement, and Nick seems to accept this in stride.  Is it the sort of agreement he would have concocted himself?  Perhaps and perhaps not.  They have never had much of a discussion around Nick's view on relationships or...well, anything in that arena.  For as long as she has known him he has been with Pen, and happily so, and like many married couples whoever they were before does not come up in conversation.

"It is," he says, "and I would call any ending in which you're happy a happy ending.  It does sound like you're happy to have reunited with him."

Ari

Nobody has given overmuch thought to Arianna's ring.  It is perfect in that way. Hermetics have rings; it is a very Hermetic thing to do.  They stand in for constellations and planets, hold gems of magical properties, stand in for string tied around fingers as reminders.  No one thinks twice about Hermetics and their rings, though the plainness of the thin, silver-hued band is probably what is most striking about it.  It is her string-around-finger reminder; it is echoed in Silas's own.  His might feel more heavy than hers when they are parted; hers is surely more weighty when they are together.

"I am happy.  Unsure of how this agreement of ours fits for longer than a week or a two at a time, but happy nonetheless."  She shifts a little in the chair; the weight of story-telling is passed. And she has not fallen into wistful things like telling him how they spoke to one another in poetry-- no, verily, and she can quoth the stanzas still if he required proof--or other sacchrine, ridiculous things.  Ari is quite pleased with herself about that as it is one thing to Name oneself foolish and quite another to prove it so handily.

Ari shallows out her coupe and sets it somewhere on a flat near to her. Some place where it is not endangered.  Some place safe from the capriciousness of her moods and movements.

"Have I earned a story in return?" she asks, and it is a dangerous question to answer unqualified.  Nick knows; he is raven-haired and quick-witted and watchful.  She might ask him for anything; she might ask him for nothing; and either way, Ari would find something priceless and rare in the reply.

Nick

Nick swallows the remainder of the champagne in his own glass, and this he also sets aside on the wrought iron-and-wood table next to his chair.  His own movements are not so capricious, but it is easier to do this than to keep an empty glass in hand, and one glass of champagne is precisely the amount of champagne that he wants.  For now, at least.

Ari voices uncertainty, and to this Nick nods; the understanding he reflects back here is a different thing, less personal identification with what she is saying and closer to a sort of practiced empathy: this is also how I would feel if, regardless of whether he would.  "I'm glad," he says, and means it.  "It sounds like you've both talked things through and worked things out before, and I think you'll do it here."

Her question doesn't catch him off guard, precisely, but there is this shift in his expression as she asks after a story of his own, a half-lashed look that suggests that it is a thing most people don't ask after when he offers a listening ear.  She might ask him for anything, and Nick is quick-witted and watchful.  "Of course you have," he says.  "We're friends.  You can ask for any story you'd like."

Unnecessary Measures

Arianna

The only way that Arianna Giametti and Andrés Sepulveda seem likely to colocalize is in establishments that are purveyors of fine (or cheap, cheap works too) alcohol.  They are about as unlikely drinking buddies as ever the Awakened world has seen: he with the sense of cold foreboding wrapped around his pattern, and she with the sense of starlight wreathed around her.  And today she has been drinking enough that her hands and words seem inexorably tied, and she is explaining to him something, as the door to said drinking establishment swings wide, something in one of those expressive languages, languages of the heart, romantic, some call them, she is saying something that requires large and sweeping gestures, and Italian is close enough to Spanish anyway.

What they are talking about doesn't matter much.  The obvious sense of camaraderie and mischief to her, the easy way she seems to make very bad ideas seem logical and well within the bounds of reason?  The absolutely impeccable quality of her dress, aspects of her appearance; this easy and uninhibited sense of privilege and wealth? Those are important.  Those are critical.

It turns out, she is telling him about a recipe.  It could be magical; or it could be a secret family pasta sauce.  Her hands still a little, come up to wrap a pashmina around her neck against the cold of the Denver winter. Because it is Spring; and therefore there is a blizzard.

Andrés

[DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY: jamie has 90 minutes on her laptop battery and will have company in 15-45 minutes so her posts will not be top-notch]

Many airports and European bistros have instances where travelers from Spain and Italy have run into each other and had entire conversations without either having previously learned the other's tongue.

Mexican-Spanish is not his mother tongue. It was his mother's tongue and his father's tongue but his father was barely around and his mother -- well. Arianna has none of this information. She does know that he speaks Spanish with an immigrant's fluency and can understand about half of what she says when she lapses into Italian. A match made in Hell.

If she has not smacked it off yet, he has his arm around her waist. Not tight, not possessive, but like he, five-foot-six in his shoes, needs her for balance. He's wearing most of a suit. The tie is gone. He hasn't shaved his face since Saturday. His glasses are on his face. His wedding band is gone.

"Anyone!" he is saying. "Anyone who denies the change of the climate, they have never been to the United States!"

Arianna

She mostly understands him when he speaks; probably a fair bit better than he understands her, and so it brings the conversation back to English more than her tipsy multi-lingual tendencies would otherwise prefer.

"Tell me again, about this Climate Change -- and why, if you have done the proper cantrips; if you have the associated research; why would it be denied?  Change is inevitable, right, this is how your English saying goes?"

There is a flush to her cheeks, a rosy-warmth and healthy looking thing.  It is partly alcohol, and partly amusement. She hasn't shoved him off of her, rather slipped an arm around his shoulder, steadying him further.  Or steadying herself off of him.  Ari is taller by an inch; she is immeasurably more put together.

It is a small miracle that they are not debating the finer points of Hermeticism as they wander-weave down the street, in search of the next pub on tonight's ill-advised crawl.

Grace

She's bought her plant materials today. Those are stuck in the back of her car, waiting for the chance to be used. But then, she found herself in the general area of a number of bars. It's a good plan, right? Drunken hydroponic gardening? She can always get Kalen to drive her home. Or, possibly, just undrunk herself.

So, she walks into the place, and... finds that Andrés is here, by the way the cold slither goes down her neck. Fantastic.

No, it's good to see him, not... You know... I mean, hopefully he's not...

She walks up, squinting a bit, and then relieved once she actually gets a good look. She's got on her usual red (sharp-looking) coat, with jeans underneath. Accidentally fashionable, at best, Grace only teally cares that she's clothed.

"Oh, hey. Dr. Sepúlveda. Nice to see you not naked. Who's this? Also, it's denied somewhat because people don't understand the difference between seasonal changes and climate changes. Fucking senators throwing snowballs to 'prove' it's not happening..."

Andrés

"Gracia! Ignorance! Ignorance throws the snowballs!"

He neither releases Arianna nor addresses the part of her sentence that has to do with his prior nakedness. He does however speak with the hand that isn't latched onto the Hermetic's hip.

"Le presento a Arianna," he says. "Arianna, le presento a Gracia." Lightbulb! He isn't just trying to be a dick! He has a thick accent and is drunk half the time! "If you want to give each other your..." A flailing yet cyclical hand motion. "... your whatevers. Persuasions. What is the w--TRADITIONS. Yes. Do it. I'm not."

Arianna

Here Arianna is, enjoying the company of commoners, arm looped around the shoulders of a most unlikely friend, dripping with the sense of starlight, tripping over the toes of her multitude of languages. She is almost comfortable in how they discuss these pedestrian things like the fate of the global ecology when...

... Grace wanders up.  Ari's eyes flicker over to her quickly; to the sound of a new and unfamiliar voice.  There is a slick of quicksilver to them, something mercurial and unfathomable but clever, but quick, and all together too inviting. Sharp red, bright white, and what can only be assumed to be shades of what was black -- they are at least a complementary tangle of outerwear, if not resonances.  The corner of her mouth curls, slightly, at some inward joke.

"Naked..."  A look to Andres, and then, in something close to Spanish, she says, "You didn't seem to be the sort."  Mirth here; approval or perhaps cleverly covered disdain. It is difficult to tell just now. Hard to see around the teasing in her eyes.

"It is a pleasure, Grace, to make your acquaintance," and though the words are formal, they are tinged with her mood and her slight inebriation.  There is a playful pass at curtsey here, one that isn't going to drop the good doctor on his ass.  She has manners, after all, however occluded they may be at most times.

Grace

Arionna's curtsey. Grace tries to mirror it, with a frown of concentration on her face. She was named Grace, but the name never suited her.

"Arianna. Nice to meet you. Also, yeah. He didn't really look like he had too much of a problem with it either..."

Grace though. A blush comes to her face just talking about it. She shakes her head.

"I guess not too many people can say The Union desperately wanted to make their clothes disappear. It's, you know, bragging rights."

Of a sort.

"I'm with the Elites. You? I've heard the name Arianna around.

Margot

Let us not worry about what Margot was doing prior to this moment.  Let people presume what they will about the time of a 19-year-old girl and what she may dedicate it to (they're probably wrong anyways).  What does matter is that this here was a hot spot tonight, a veritable leyline where Fates and paths crossed over into a patch of concrete and brick in front of a bar in the heart of Downtown Denver.

She was wearing a pair of black boots laced up the ankle, into which a pair of snug gray jeans were tucked.  A heavy brown jacket warded off the chill from the last breath of winter-- accustomed though she may be to chilliness due in whole to her mentor's resonance, she was still human bodied and susceptible.  She had her hands in her pockets and her hair down, left for the wind to tug and pull however it pleased when it whispered.

Ahoy!  Up ahead!  A zap in the air, a chill, a sparkle, a whoosh.  Margot slowed and stopped several yards away, frowning, hesitating, hovering.

Grace, who walked away upset when she saw her last.  The Doc, with his arm around the waist of a pretty stranger in a dress.  He looked properly toasted, so did she.  Her nose wrinkled and she hovered, unsure of if she wanted to come and play.

But that resonance, though....  They would notice, it was like having a battlefield full of carrion and sticky red crawling up behind you.

Arianna

Grace blushes.  It draws a little more of Arianna's attention her way. This could be a good thing; it could be a very very bad thing.  But these are not her usual circles, and so her usual games are held at bay, but only just so.  When Grace says 'the Elites' one of Ari's eyebrows arches just so, lofted a measured amount.

"The Elites? I thought you were a faery race of nightmares made up just to scare good little Apprentices within the Order into behaving just so, lest their wands be taken away and fashioned in ... to...those memory things." Well, this is where it falls apart.  She has likely never held a thumb drive in her life -- not one that livedto tell the tale.

This, though, with the curl of mischeif sharply intact.

"Though do tell, as I am always curious: from whom have you learned my name?"  Oh yes, now, her Hermetic is showing. The grammar; the grammar always gives them away.

Andrés

"It is a popular name," says Sepúlveda.

What else is he supposed to say. He's on the sidewalk with his arm around the waist of an attractive woman who has her arm around his shoulder. Yeah it's well-known he was going to break into the Amaranthine Laboratories and retrieve Alexander Brandt. Yeah it's not so well-known that he contracted clothing-eating nanites and spent three days holed up in an invisible van outside the motel Serafíne the Cultist had cordoned off in case of cases like this.

And then here comes his apprentice.

It has nothing to do with the fact that something goes off in his pocket. It isn't his cellphone. It's blocky and weird and may or may not resemble something Grace saw in the back of the "ambulance" in which she first witnessed Sepúlveda's nudity.

"Shit," he says when he pulls the device out of his pocket. "I gotta go."

Arianna

[Awareness: because I suppose I should roll this if we are openly talking magics in public]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Arianna

[Awareness: because I suppose I should roll this if we are openly talking magics in public]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )

Arianna

((ACK! Why double roll, why?))

Margot

[[ Variety is the spice of life? ]]

Grace

"I could take your wand and turn it into a stick-insect robot," she says, a fake-cruel little grin on her face.

"Or, a wifi hotspot," she says, with a horrible evil laugh.

But when he freaks out and starts the other way, Grace looks around, a little alarmed that perhaps Dr. Sepúlveda has seen one of the Technocrats he ran into at the lab. But, it's just Margot. She looks at the Apprentice, quite confused, before looking back at the doctor...

Who's disappeared.

"Huh. I uh, heard your name from Silas."

God, but Dr. Sepúlveda is weird.

Margot

Well, there went the Doc.  We'll say that he blew right past Margot when he bailed out after a quick look at some device (not his phone, though) that was produced from his suit pocket.  When he'd passed Margot there was some brief exchange of words-- Margot looking displeased (wrinkled nose, furrowed brow, quickly shaking her head and muttering back to him).  After a certain point Andrés must have decided that he didn't have the time or it wasn't worth the hassle, because he made a gesture of 'whatever' with his hands and continued past.

Some parting words, though, had Margot looking over at Arianna and Grace.  If at that moment either looked her way as well, she pushed a closed-lipped forced smile onto her face and lifted a hand to wave; the wave looked far more genuine than the smile.  Some people are just poor in their social graces.

She started walking again, along the same path she'd been on, which was now a direct approach of the other two Mages.  Her hands went in her pockets, and in another show of amazing social finesse she greeted the pair upon proximity with a simple:

"Hey."

Arianna

Sepulveda departs, leaving Ari to stand on her own and mark this: she has practice at being inebriated and socially adept.  There are aspects of being slightly toasted that make this easier, that keep that smile and the warmth in her eyes despite the grim resonance coming up behind them.

Have you ever heard of monsters?  Do you know them to be true? Margot feels like monsters and this woman, in her dress and her white coat, in the wake of Andres abandoning her, she seems utterly unmoved by it. As if the monsters trapped in Margot breast are not that dark, and not that unknowable.  She is at ease with them; she may even know their Names.

At an appropriate time, perhaps coupled with the doc's departure, she casts a look over to the source of that sticky, dark and --

See this? A flash of teeth. Polite. Genteel.  So, absolutely, politically correct: a little laugh.  "Oh, yes.  That would be a good one."  This, then, with so many unspoken undercurrents.

"Though I would advise against it."  It is only the thinnest shadow of a warning; a blade seen on edge; only at its thinnest point.  It gives no sense of the sharpness of the thing; that is kept caged.

And this brings Margot, and her closed-lipped smile, and her caged expression, and her hesitance forward.  "Good evening," says Ari; it is pleasant and warm.  That sense of mischeif has been walked back a little bit.  It is colder here, without the doctor beside her--isn't that saying something?

Arianna

((Edit:

I could take your wand...  
*And her attention snaps back to Grace.  See this? ... (and so forth...)

I don't know how I lost that in copy/pasting!))

Grace

Grace gets that. If anyone were to take her instruments, she'd be pissed too. Still, it gives her an idea...

She pulls her phone out if her pocket.

"Hey, Margot. What's his problem?"

The last time Grace said anything to Margot it was to tell her to fuck off. This seems to have been forgotten. Mostly.

She then proceeds to tap away at her phone's screen. Mercurial Elites, man.

Arianna

So you've heard that stereotype, right, about how technology really doesn't get along with wizards? How their cars don't quite run right. How they eschew modern conveniences in favor Older, Truer methods.

This is especially true with Arianna.  She is well and truly cursed. Not that she minds it; technology is querrelsome at best.  But she does the Elite the favor of stepping a little further from her when Grace pulls her phone out of her pocket and starts typing away. So it will be less her fault when it starts behaving... poorly.

Margot

Arianna's warmth in her greeting wasn't missed.  In fact, it was apparent the impact it had on the little witch.  She appeared relieved, like she was worried that there was going to be some kind of a what do you want? replacing the 'good evening' that actually came.  The tension in her brow lessened, forehead smoothed and eyes relaxed.

Then came Grace's greeting and question combination.  That relief doubled up enough that Margot actually let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding and her shoulders stopped being so square and rounded down to rest.  It was good to know that grudges weren't being held over how tense their last encounter was.  That she wasn't being held necessarily responsible (yet) for how her Mentor behaved was nice too, though the question did have her glancing back over her shoulder to where the Doc had disappeared.

"Not a problem exactly.  Some project or another."  She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders as though to say 'what can you do?'.  He was a Mad Scientist after all.  She was figuring out that the emphasis on Mad and Science in that title was equal but different between words.  She looked to Arianna and smiled a little-- this one far less tense than the close-lipped thing she'd provided when approaching.  "The Doc said you know Pen and Nick, and that I should come say hi.  I'm Margot."

Yeah, Grace just said that.

Arianna

It's fair, this expectation Margot has of her. In different circumstances, that greeting may be just what she gets from the Initiate Exemptus. But not at an establishment that peddles pleasures; not outside of more strictured social circumstances.  Tonight Arianna is downright pleasant.  She is practically polite.  She has not led anyone astray or into mayhem.

"They are among my dearest friends," she says, confirming this for Margot readily. As readily as she had completely glossed over mention of Silas. Take that as you will. "Are you both known to them?"

This, then, ties the three of them together in one question.  It cements the thing. And three points make a circle, so they are cast together in it; they are made immanent and full of omens.  Then for Margot: "A pleasure. Please, call me Arianna."

Grace

"Oh, you...." she starts. The cussing is cut out. "You do too know how to do that..."

She's talking all right. To her phone. Frowning at it. Finally smacks it, like it had a head and she was slapping it.

Suddenly there is a burst of something sharp in the air. She's done playing nice with Mr. Phone.

[Entropy 3: Debugging. Obviously, her phone is possessed. The only cure is some nice, regular, orderliness. And violent smacking. Diff 5 - 1, taking her time.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (2, 4, 8) ( success x 2 )

Margot

Grace was busy with her phone.  Something sharp snapped at the air and Margot eyed her and the device she was holding suspiciously.  A keen edge, if you will, stinging and biting.  She knew that some used their technology for their Magick and Grace was among them.

As opposed to ask questions, Margot felt out the air to make sure she wouldn't get caught in a backlash somehow, then returned her attention to Arianna.

"Nice to meet you, Arianna."

Were they both known to them?  Margot glanced to Grace, then shrugged.  She couldn't speak for the Elitist's familiarity with the Chakravanti-Hermetic couple  She could speak to her own, though.

"Yeah, the Doc had a dinner party and had Ned and I over to meet them.  We're in touch now, here and there."  She paused, then added for context:  "Dr. Sepulveda is my mentor."  Left out Ned, though.  Sorry buddy.

Arianna

There is a crackle of energy in the air around her, the hallmarks of working magics and, unlike Margot, it draws up something ever-ready and precise in Arianna. Her shoulders square, and her chin lifts.  Even tipsy, even a little off-her-guard, her attention is cast wide before narrowing back to the Elite at her side.

"Is everything alright?" she asks Grace.  It is clear spoken; it is sharp-eyed.  But there is no obvious sense of danger, and so Arianna's hand strays to a pocket, fingers wrapped around the hilt of her wand, but she does not draw it out in public.  Mark, though, that she is ready.  She is able.

This tension remains, uneasiness, between them as she casts her attention back to Margot. She is surprised at something the girl has said, reaches for the appropriate words to touch upon it. "I... am surprised to hear he is your Master.  I would have marked you for an Older ilk; a greener sort."

Grace

"I've... Met both of them, a couple times," Grace says, absentmindedly, well after the question was asked.

But then Arianna said something else, didn't she?

"Oh. My phone. It's acting up. Like, the touch screen isn't... Touching or something. I think..."

She smacks it again.

"I think I fixed it..."

Arianna

"Oh," she says. Just this. And the singing tension drops out of her shoulders; sluices; moves away is if it were never there. And there is mirth to the corners of her eyes again -- one could imagine it amuses her when, yet again, the older ways are proven to be more stable things, to hold more gravitas. In truth, it is just the stay of some unknown altercation that pleases her.

After all, this is a city on the brink of War. This is a place where an unaffiliated Apprentice was taken, reclaimed again, and they are still awaiting the retribution.

"I'm glad it's better now."  That seems like an appropriate thing to say, doesn't it?  That's practically pleasant.  It saves her from making some sort of patently false assertion about how friends of Nick and Pen were her friends too, or some other platitude.  Arianna doesn't deal in platitudes.

Grace

Her phone is amusing Grace now. Taps get followed by mischevous grins.

Somebody's up to something.

"Oh, yes. It's great," she says. "In fact, I have just made 'Arionna's Wand' into a wifi hotspot."

A grin. This time above her phone screen. At Arionna.

"I'm joking! Joking!"

Margot

"Master?"

Margot sounded incredibly offended by the word-- not insulted by Arianna directly as much as appauled at the notion of referring to him, or anyone really, as master.  She stared at the pretty Italian woman with disbelief.  But then--

"Oh.  Hermetic."  Already wide eyes widened further with realization, and the girl relaxed.

Then she realized there was another question hanging in the air.  Forgot for a moment, because she was distracted watching Grace and her phone.  Stared for a moment, then remembered that Arianna had spoken further of Traditions.

"No, no no.  I'm not into Science like that.  I'm studying ecology, but gizmos and chemistry sets?"  She shook her head and waved her hand.  "I don't have a Tradition yet."  She glanced around.  Nobody was passing near, nobody had exited the bar to bombard them yet.  She wasn't worried about being overheard really.  What, would the Technocrats have a stake out in every part of the city?  Wouldn't being around Grace basically automatically ward her by proximity?  She couldn't doubt that Grace kept a Ward up about herself, especially these days.

"I think I may look into the Verbenas.... Penelope actually said she'd ask a friend to meet me."  The Doc was right-- community was key, wasn't it?

Margot

[[ Sorry for the occasional delay, by the way!  I've got a baby about sooo, heh, you know. :) ]]

Arianna

For Grace: If looks could kill is a stupid saying among willworkers. Looks could, in fact, kill. Looks could flay a mind down to its vestigal redundancies and fail to built it back again. Looks could steal air from lungs; they could turn veins to ice. Looks, man, they're powerful things.  So there is delicacy in the Look that Arianna gives Grace; it is measured; it is precisely as warning as she wants it to be without going further into coldness.

"You are quite clever."

This may not be a compliment.

"Oh.  You are the apprentice for whom Thane is visiting," Arianna says, stringing quite a few things overheard into something more solidified.  This brokers a true smile, a thing that touches her eyes. "I am indebted to you, then.  Because we do miss him, and you have given him good reason to venture out this far."

Grace

"I really did though," a huff of a laugh. If Arianna wants to throw fireballs at her, Grace can take it. In fact, all the serious business the woman keeps putting on her face have only served to egg Grace on more.

"I named my phone 'Arionna's Wand' and turned it into a wifi hotspot."

Because, you know, doing what you're explicitly warned not to do, getting around things by using cheap tricks? It's all a good hacker ever does. Even if the result thus achieved is kind of silly...

"And, I am very clever. It is good of you to notice that. Who's Thane?"

Margot

[Perception + Empathy: Are these two goading each other or what?]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Arianna

[Manip + Subter (cunning): Nah, we cool. I'm just a Hermetic.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 ) Re-rolls: 1

Arianna

((ACK! Not re-rolls. Double 10s. I am such a M20 newb.))

Arianna

The serious business face is what is keeping Arianna from being an outright ass and asking, in a jovial and friendly tone, for Grace to let her see: how cool! Because she is so very good at being cunning, and also at being mean. And then getting her wizardly cooties all over the Elite's tech.  This abrupt and perturbed outward seeming is the lesser of the available escalation tactics. Nobody's instruments are well and truly called into danger.

Yet.

Grace's smugness is met with a briefer smile.  And here, then, Arianna's own phone, something anachronistic, and bulky, something that flips and doesn't touch, comes out of her pocket.  Things are typed, keys pressed.  It goes back into her pocket.

It does not remain in view as long as Grace's tech.  It would be unfair to call Arianna's phone "tech" this many years after its debut. The question of Thane's providence, then, is returned to.

"A friend of mine, and Nicholas's and Pen's, who shall be visiting for a brief while."  She says this plainly. So that Grace, distracted as she is with Arianna's Wand (the phone [not the true one]), might still take it up this time.  "And will likely speak with Margot her about her mystical inclinations."

Margot

While Arianna gave stern looks and Grace grinned and continued to play (Circuit Coyote), Margot was quiet.  She looked between the two of them, like she was anxious of tension that may begin to flicker-flicker-flint.  She'd seen a pair of Mages in a fight with one another before, and the aftermath made her puke in her mentor's toilet.  She didn't want to be here if it was going to happen again.

But nothing came of it, and Arianna had addresse her with thanks for bringing Thane back out.  Claimed that Margot herself was a very good reason for him to visit.  The Apprentice looked thoughtful while there was filling in on Thane's identity going on.

"...Recruitment's that important, is it?"  She piped up quietly, and glanced between Arianna and Grace both.  Perhaps a question she sought bouth their views on.

Arianna

"Recruitment?"

This draws a furrow to Arianna's brow for a moment, and for a moment she cares not at all what the Elite has named her phone, or whether Naming is sufficient sympathetic magic to link the named thing to the true thing and thus influence the flow of Ars Essentiae between them -- because that would be impolite. And rude, even by Hermetic standards. And would make Nick unhappy with her. A different sort of unhappy with her than he has sometimes been. It would be counterproductive, however satisfying.

And no, Margot, there will be no great awakened throw down in mystical Denver Downtown.  At least, if there was, Arianna with her stern looks would not be the one to start it.

"I... I would speak to you about this in a more controlled environment, but, and please understand, Margot, that I am being brief not in dismissiveness but of necessity -- Choosing the minds with which you will align yourself is more precious and important than 'recruitment' may belie.  It is choosing the framework upon which you hang your Works, your world view, and ultimately your greatest accomplishments and challenges.  You are choosing the shoulders of the giants upon which you will stand as you move forward in your enlightenment. Do not let any Tradition claim you that you would not proudly claim for yourself, but also do not belittle or diminish the danger in remaining apart."

This for the apprentice; this for the one who will claim Thane's attention and possibly join his Tradition. Every single syllable of this is spoken without slurring; it is imperative; it is crystal clear and shining.  For Arianna is also luminous, and the Order has been a shining City on the Hill to many in its millenia of leadership.

Grace

"Oh, that's cool!" Grace says, to Arianna's reply. Honestly, Margot needs more than just Andrés Sepúlveda in her life.

But, to Arianna's words, she shakes her head. "I don't really think 'recruitment' is nearly as important as just having people you can talk to about your... mystical inclinations. Hell, when I Awakened, I had a bunch of people -- none of them technically minded -- who I leaned on a lot to figure out how to deal. There's a lot of commonalities in what we do, when you get down to it. 

"You might find if you want to have that in your life, joining up under a banner is the way to go. You might also not. I know a lot of Disparates in the city who adamantly want to go their own way, and there's nothing wrong with that. A bit more dangerous, yeah. Perhaps. But we're Mages," she says, gets down to a more serious tone herself. "There is no fear we can't conquer."

Arianna

"It is more than a bit more dangerous," Arianna says, on the heels of Grace's opinion.  This, too, is clear cut and definitive.  "But Grace is right: the choice is yours."  It is ominous when she says it that way; it gives the thing the proper weight.

"Keep in mind, though: not all places are so... generous... to Disparates."

Grace

"Then, those places are corrupt. And I wouldn't go anywhere near them anyway, Disparate or no."

Ahh, happy shiny conflict.

"There's a word for people who care about other people's labels. That word is: 'bigot'."

Arianna

"So you have a label then, for these other labellers of people?" Arianna asks. Her mouth twists wrily, eyebrow arched and challenging. It is a dark and dangerous thing.  She has honed her skills in this game against a Tytalan. It shows.

Margot

The advice that she received was soaked up like a sponge.  Margot listened raptly to Arianna, for she was well-spoken and serious and impactful, and her words felt like they carried heavy weight.  She listened to Grace, of whom she's heard in almost every conversation that revolved around the magickal community in this city.  Grace said this, Grace set this up, Grace dismantled this and found this and fixed this.  Margot bore this in mind, and also noted a similarity there-- she knew a lot of people, but none of them seemed to match up with what she felt herself to be.

Then, some back and forth about the pros and cons of Traditions and Orphans and bigots and bigoted bigot callers and--

"I'm a witch."

Margot cut in, over their back and forth.  Glanced between the two, almost sharply (scoldingly, a budding emergence of what Mage she would become when her connection to her Avatar was stronger, no doubt-- when her confidence and Power were given time to grow), and continued on.

"Ned and I, we've talked about this.  We'll find Traditions, it's unsafe to do otherwise.  I've seen what happens.  I--,"  But her phone started ringing in her pocket.  She glanced down at the screen, then sighed and explained:  "It's the Doc, will you excuse me?"

She stepped away.  A brief conversation later (tense back and forth for perhaps a minute or less), Margot sighed and pocketed her phone.  Returned to the others and explained:  "I guess the Doc's gonna get his assistant tonight after all.  Thanks for, y'know, your time and stuff you two."  An awkward pause, for an awkward girl, then-- "'Bye."

And away went Margot Travers, briskly up the sidewalk from whence she came.

Margot

[Thanks so much for playing you guys!  Time for me to bail, I work reaaaal early in the mornings.  Goodnight!]

Grace

Margot interrupts. It's probably a good thing, because Grace was about to go on a rant about how there exists a whole group of people out there who cared so much about the internal thoughts and beliefs of other people that they went and tried to force everyone into 'recruitment'. In their prisons of Primium. Via mind control. And other, even less savory methods.

"Bye," she says, to Margot, who's already leaving, already left.

"I just think... one shouldn't have to give up all that they are, all that they believe in in the process of gaining safety, Arianna. That's what some Disparates would have to do, you know. Your heart chooses. You don't choose a Tradition and then cut pieces of yourself off so that you'll fit. I guess some people do. Because people would treat them like shit if they didn't, in those 'other places'."

Arianna

Arianna's chin is held a little more proudly as she watches the Apprentice retreat up the street and off toward her temporary mentor.  There is some measure of esteem for the young woman held there. The weight and knowing of it is opaque; she does not strive to clarify it.

"You may think whatever it is that you like," she says to the Mercurial Elite. It is not rude, or cold, or even unkind but it is as firmly spoken as Grace is emphatic.  "And we will disagree upon this point: Because choosing a Tradition does not require one to dismember their Will.  It requires one to view the security of the whole community, of the Work we all do and the sanctity of other Wills above the singular importance of the self -- which must sound strange from a member of my own Tradition, but it is the truth.

"The Disparates are selfish; their standing apart makes them vulnerable, and risks common resources to bring them home.  Because we will not leave them to these Others that you speak of: the best among us will not leave to them their consequences.  You can have your opinions, but they are expensive.  They are costly in ways you cannot pay down all yourself."

Grace

Grace has a particular Disparate in mind. One who's in a hotel room right now, in clothes he got from someone else, because all he was left with was a pair of khaki scrubs. A man with scars in his mind now. A man who has given his all to stand in the face of danger for Traditionalists.

"I'm guessing you're talking about Alex? The guy who stood in an alleyway in between a Hermetic and a vampire, willing to lay his life down? The guy who helped cut up a bunch of possessed plant-things in order to save a Verbena? The guy who, when he was a cop, was the kind of cop who lived to put his life on the line every day for other people, Awakened or not?

"He was selfish? Because he got caught and risked common resources? Those were partly my resources, freely given. Hell, I would have given my left leg to bring him back, Arianna. The 'best among us' in your opinion meet a basic standard of human dignity in mine. You don't want to help someone else because they're a Disparate and you feel they are being selfish, okay. That's your right. You choose your own path and all, even if that path leads straight to Hell."

Let the record stand, if Arianna was glaring daggers about her wand, Grace is doing a bit more than that. Every word is sharp. Every gesture. Like the very resonance she carries with her. She wants to hit this woman, to make her feel the hurt her words have brought to the surface, but restrains that.

Arianna

[This seems like a good time for dice.  We don't go full red-head hermetic in public, right?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )

Arianna

[Awesome.  And we are super chill about reacting right? Manip + Subt (Cunning, because evasion)]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens]

Arianna

((Hallelujah! Praise thrice-wise Hermes.))

Arianna

Grace has a particular Disparate in mind, and the association brings everything hot and heavy to the foreground. She is ready to hit Arianna for the intimation; she is ready to escalate a difference of opinion and value structures to violence.

Grace has called Arianna a bigot.  Grace has called the sacred places that she has known Corrupt.  Now she's practically spitting words at the Hermetic woman, sharp words, sharp gestures.  It's the sort of thing that people notice.  And Arianna?

She steps close. She keeps her voice low. It is not heated and spitting and violent like Grace's. It is controlled, and calm, collected and cool.  Remote, even, for all that it will piss Grace off even more.

"I did not speak about your Alex.  He is vouched for; he is claimed.  There are many who would have missed him.  I was well informed of this.  You take offense where there is none given, Grace of the Mercurial Elites." 

Ari steps back, she looses the tension in her shoulders.  She smiles.  This is not for Grace, but it is for all the sleepwalkers around them.  It de-escalates the brimming clash of starlight and something winged.

"I think, perhaps, we should take our leave of one another.  You on your path, and mine as straight away it leads to Hell," this seems to amuse her.  The amusement of it cuts through her eyes.  It does not dampen the sense of warning; that Grace is being given grace just this one time; that there are dragons here, and Arianna has kept them on their chains.

Grace

"That sounds like a great idea," Grace says, with finality. Turns and walks away without another word or glance. There is only so much that she can take.

Arianna

There is no tab to pay, but Arianna waits until Grace has left before she gathers her phone from her pocket and types out a short text.  True to form, it likely gets queued for ever in some tech spooler in the sky. It won't matter in the long run. This sparring with Grace has given her time to recuperate from her outing with Andres.

But Ari is a pretty woman, and there is probably some poor unwitting sleeper who will ask her if she is okay. And there will be feigned pleasantries, and politenesses, to keep, which will space her departure all the more from Grace's. Which is probably a good thing for everyone involved.

Each season, and birthdays

[Silas]

Coming awake in the morning is a switch ­ from off, to on. There is no subtle slide from dreaming to waking, just darkness and nothing, then light and sound. Silas is still, assessing the situation. There are important things to know, now: if he's alone and if not if Arianna is awake. How many of the roommates are still home. Where the hounds are. And so on. [The hounds, upon waking of their master, make their way downstairs for breakfast and a run with Tony. Dante has already been called in to the hospital. Only Mark remains downstairs, once Tony and the hounds make their way outside.]

With waking, Silas' breathing doesn't change much ­ at least not until these assessments have been made. Arianna may not realize it's happened until he allows her to know.

[Arianna]

It is morning, and the aurora of Spring comes crashing through the window behind her. It touches the fine hairs that break away from her braid ­­ twisted quickly between deft hands, without the assistance of a mirror ­­ and illuminates her, casts a halo about her head. It is an unfortunate echo to her father's resonance and avatar; it is borrowed and not her own: unintentional. Arianna is dressed in the clothes she'd worn to visit him the night before. Dark but not black slacks, less perfectly pressed after a night on his floor; soft pink sweater, with the points of her collar and her cuffs lending it a sense of precision and professionalism. She is seated on his divan, canted forward, elbows on knees, hands come together, with the pale slip of yew that is her wand held easily in her projective hand. Beside her, resting on the divan but well within arm's reach, is the outmoded brick of her cellphone.

Earlier, when he had still been sleeping, she had reached out to someone trusted. It's possible that he heard a name in his slumber (Kestrel), and marked it for a dreaming thing, an echo of spring.

When Silas wakes and takes his assessment of the house, the bros, the state of things, among the first of note will be this: there is no hand above his heart; there is no warmth of her body beside him; the sheets beside him are cool to the touch; she has been gone for awhile. And next: she has not gone far.

It is easier to remember, now, with the fire of dawn caught all around her, that she is the capable daughter of a terrifying Flambeau. That she is trained in Ars Potentiae with the finest of their shared House. And that, in Ars Mentis, she has studied with a Tytalan ­­ though perhaps this last he does not know; perhaps this last is why he felt the press of her, and her emotions, but not the quick of something deeper and biting. The Hunt, in its want and need and rage, and with a measure of his hand to guide it toward her, had chosen not some hapless prey but a competent and dangerous quarry. She watches him, the first movements he makes toward rising, with an intensity that contradicts her casual posture and neutral expression.

How can you tell, she has asked this Kestrel, If a man's mind is all his own?

Whatever the answer, it has led to this.

[Silas]

Arianna is not beside him but has not gone far, and the movement that brings him to seated with his bedding pooled in his lap. Perhaps his skin still bears the marks of last night ­ mother's blood and bruises from the battering of water, or perhaps that was just conceptual and the marks are only in the Hunter's mind. The blue eyes that come to rest on his Star are clear in a way that they hadn't been before last night, although there is an uncertainty there that Arianna hasn't truly seen since they were last together at Conclave. Silas as she's met him now is a paragon of predatory confidence . . .

. . . or was, until now.

Study of her posture, the scene, is quick; if the appearance of her Wand is startling to him, he makes no show of it. In truth, the phone gets a slightly more lingering look because, as foggy as memories of fighting his way through to the Rite may be, Silas remembers exactly what transpired between them after. Every. single. detail. So there is wariness in his posture but not fear ­ never fear ­ as he looks at her, all in the few seconds between sitting up and speaking.

"Morning." Not 'good', not yet. "Are you well, Stella?"

[Arianna]

They are all but strangers to one another now, that much is clearer in the light of day. She is more or less the same seeming; the green of her eyes is the same; the line of her jaw is familiar. Years have passed and honed and shaped them separately. He is right to be wary of her, a self­possessed woman and seasoned Initiate. Her posture and expression give nothing away: she is better at this, too, than she had been when last they knew each other. It's her wand that betrays her, tiny and involuntary tensions in her fingers translated into movement of the thin slip of yew she holds. He sees how his words affect her not in the shape of her mouth, but in the twitching of the tip of that instrument.

Her mouth opens, then closes as she thinks better of whatever she might have said. When she holds back. A lesser woman would burn brightly with anger; would yell, make demands. Arianna is the picture of control, collected, without seeming exactly calm. The aire of calm is borrowed serenity at best; it is a trap.

"No, I am not well," she tells him. To say she was anything else would be a lie. No woman is well after what had transpired between them, however over­written it had been by the resemblance of choice and control after. But there is no fear showing in her eyes, either; nothing but solitary strength in the way she holds herself and holds herself apart. It is terrifying in its own way. So there is this: she has not lied to him, in words, yet.

"Explain to me," she says, carefully, without hostility though it is banked and ready in her breast, "What happened last night. Explain it to me in small and careful words, like I am a child; as if I might not understand. Because I am desperately hoping that I have misunderstood something. The explanations I can make myself lead nowhere good."

There are hidden things in this request, and Silas is smart enough to mark them. It is not a time for levity; there is no place for half­truths here. Because Arianna may only be an Initiate, but she is trained by Adept Majors. In a heart beat, she could have one here. Reinforcements might be on their way already, and Silas is left to imagine how the others who hold his Star dear might feel having heard only her side of this story. He can use as reference how brightly his anger would burn had she called him with similar news. He can imagine how it might feel to a creature who cannot cross the threshold of his home uninvited to be so taken in the night.

[Silas]

His pause might be seen as hesitation, marked as weakness, but it's neither; Silas is taking as much time as he can to frame his answer not in a way that makes what he did acceptable (because there is no such way), but to make it . . . understandable? Something less than abhorrent, anyway. But perhaps Arianna has never heard the call of the horns. Even if she has, Silas is almost certain that she's never answered it.

"I woke to the sound of hunting horns," he says slowly, deliberate and clear, his eyes held fast to hers as much as she allows. "It was the Equinox. I answered them; I had to." Of course he did ­ she knows him of old, and even as a child, prior to his Awakening (or hers), Silas was a Hunter. His favorite things to do at Conclaves were always the mazes and puzzles, the finding of things. That doesn't excuse his behavior last night even a little bit, nor does the part where he wasn't fully in charge.

Because he should have been.

"So I went on the Hunt. There was a cavern that led tunnel, which I followed to the birthing bed. I missed the rising of the God­child." This is almost forlorn; he is a follower of the old ways, is Silas, and a Life mage. Of course he should have been there to witness it. "But I continued following the scent, and fought my way through a storm flood . . . to a Faerie circle." Whatever most people may think of the existence of Fae ­ even most Hermetics in this day and age, the Robinson clan has reason to believe they're real. "I was the Hunter, and the Celebrant. There was food, and wine; a nearly literal bacchanal, in truth. It was the conclusion of my Hunt, and I was meant to take my due there, among the others."

Here, he adjusts his position so that his hands can come together in his lap, the fingers on his left twisting the ring on his right.

"But I left the circle and ran as the wind, back to the house. Back to you. And I'd lost all semblance of control in the crossing." Perhaps, in hearing the story, Arianna can mark the point at which he regained it ­ the point when Silas pulled away, looking so horrified. "So I came to you, and you were mine ­ ours ­ and . . . I took you without your consent. It was wrong, I know. I should have exercised better control."

Or any, for that matter. But as drained as Arianna was when she came to him, Silas is now. He was more so, last night.

[Arianna]

Arianna Giametti has most certainly not ever felt the call of the horns. Unless, of course, one means the connection she feels to Silas himself ­­ which is not at all the same thing; which does not ebb and flow with the suntides or peak at the solstices and equinoxes. Which is not to say that she is unmoved by older things, that the sense of something Othered does not follow in her wake. She who cannot touch technology without leaving it unstable and a­fritz; she who cannot cross thresholds without invitations if they lead to someone's home; she who cannot speak without hermeticism dripping from her tongue; who is enamoured of glamours and riddles and symbols; who speaks as many languages of man as her head will hold; who speaks the language of the Angels as well. She is well acquainted with the old ways, if not these Old Ways among them.

"So..." Eyes narrow; voice calm: suspicious. "It is like a Seeking?" She does not understand, not in fully. It sounds suspiciously convenient, from where she is sitting, suspiciously like Something Made Me Do It. There is a tiny gesture ­­ with her hand and not her wand; she does not want him to answer that. That is not something that will help her understand. It will not sate the anger within her; it will not make her feel less violated.

"When did you know?" she asks him. "When did you know that I was not consenting; that you had taken without asking ­­ because the oath I swore you does not encompass this, this is not a thing I've sworn to you; I am not ­­ I did not..." Her anger flares. She schools it back, pulls it back behind her teeth. Her eyes go from the gleam of oil over steel to something less deadly. "When did you know?" she asks him; she does not ask: have there been others that you have so taken?

[Silas]

When did you know? Arianna asks and Silas isn't entirely certain of the answer (there are consequences to these things, are there not?), not without thought. Did he know when he pushed into her sleeping body, or when his fingers dug in to push her to the position he wanted? Or . . .

"Not until you pushed into my mind, I swear." It's not quite a capital S swear, but it carries the weight of Truth nonetheless. There's a quiet moment, and still (if it's allowed) blue eyes hold hazel­green; Silas is not submitting, nor is he letting himself off the hook. He wants ­ no, needs ­ to see every expression that comes in answer to his words and deeds. It is clear in his expression that [now, at least] Silas­the­Man knows he's done her wrong. That he's hurt her in many ways, including physically. ".....I'd never left the circle without completing the Rite before. I didn't know what would happen, just that I wanted you. And that She looked like you, but wasn't. The eyes were wrong."

And more than that, if he thinks it through; even that afternoon when they were teenagers with a stolen bottle of wine, his Star hadn't behaved in such a forward manner. On the last, though, his voice is quieter; he's admitting something deeper than the words themselves might indicate, so tone and timbre make short work of evidencing it. Only once before has he come close to this depth of conversation ­ and that was nearly a decade ago, when they'd parted on good terms with an Oath between them.

"This is not a thing you've sworn to me, no. And you are more than my behavior credits you." More to him, and more in general.

[Arianna]

He was to see every expression that comes in answer to his words and deeds. It is a foolish thing to want, more so with a woman like Arianna, who has been trained in their shared Tradition since the moment of her birth, trained to not give voice to weakness or vulnerability. Her father is an instrument of war, her mother a scholar of their history. It surprises no one that she gives him only her profile, the severity of her cheekbones and her chin, the proud and regal line of her nose, the tightness of her mouth and eyes and not the full bearing of her gaze. It should not surprise him in the slightest.

"You are lucky," she says, and the words are tight. They are low out of necessity, but had her voice not been so diminished it would have been louder. The force of it is all the same. "If I had not recognized you, however changed you say you were, it would have been more than my Mind in yours. Ars Mentis is not my strongest suit."

The warning could not be more clear. For all that had happened, she had pulled her punches.

It takes a long moment before she will give him more than her profile. In it, he can see the tension in her frame, how it is pulled taut despite that nonchalance she borrows; he can see the marks that he left on her neck and collarbone, just visible beneath the neckline of her shirt. He can wonder over who left them there, Silas­the­man or Silas­the­Hunt. He can wonder after all the hidden marks upon her, and their authors and owners. Because things are hazy for him that are not to her.

She is considering this, weighing it carefully; it is not a thing one's mind should be able to rationalize, and yet she tries. Stranger things have been explained to her, but not perhaps after first taking so much from her. And yet, she has been foolish. She has known for a long time that Silas is a Hunter; she has seen Sylvanus in him for herself. She has reveled in and around the truth of it, but never long enough to touch upon these darker things.

"I am torn by this. You stripped my Will from me and, as a magus of the Order, I am livid with you over that presumption. It is the deepest transgression, however it has happened." This, this is the expected response. He can see the truth of it in the green of her eyes; this is their foundation, their bedrock. He knows the offense is deeper than the physical hurt. He knows the consequence to his person, on any other night, would have been graver.

"And yet I am called to you, and you are called to this hunt, and think perhaps it is more a part of you than even you know. And I enjoy the way we move together, even the abrupt and suddenness of it ­­ up to the point where I realized that you would not stop and could not hear me."

[Silas]

It is a foolish thing to want, the knowledge of every expression or thought that flickers across Arianna's face, but want it he does. To be denied such is a punishment of sorts as well, though Silas understands well enough why it's kept from him. It surprises him not at all. She asserts his good fortune and he nods his comprehension; he is lucky on many levels, yes. He could have hurt her so much worse than he has.

"I am," he answers her statement of luck, and still his eyes search her face, her bearing, still they linger on the marks he (Silas­the­Man, Silas­the­Hunt, each an instrument for the other) left on her tender skin. "In so many ways."

Now Silas shifts his position, the sheet still keeping him relatively modest, so that he is seated at the edge of the bed. He is closer to his Star now, though he doesn't touch her ­ knows that he doesn't currently have that right. Nor should he, all told. The guilt is far less paralyzing than it had been when he pulled from her last night, before she murmured again, but it's still there ­ a thin, translucent veil between them. And what he says first doesn't seem to be in answer to her assessment of ambivalence.

"Now I know what will happen, if I leave the circle without completing the Rite. Never have I had cause to learn that before." Never has he had anything to pull him from the celebration. "Never have I been overtaken so. I very much regret the ill I've done you, Arianna."

Let us not forget that Silas was also raised by an instrument of war and an academic of high order ­ two of them, in fact, if one includes the influences of his Uncle. He was also raised by a Xaosian, and a Verbena. He is well enough at keeping his thoughts and feelings to himself, but he is also adept at knowing when, perhaps, that isn't the wisest course of action. He is not completely bare before her now, but he is honest. He speaks truth, with no deception and little reservation.

[Arianna]

He is better trained for moments like this, times when compassion must come to the fore and well­ingrained arrogance and distance must be set aside. The models she has for this are peers and not elders, they are imperfect and young, they are not exactly guiding stars. So she struggles, and that struggle is evident however she tries to school it away from him. That she is here, and still talking to him is evidence enough. Had she made up her mind entirely, repercussions of one type or another would have already arrived.

There are questions, now. And the cant of her shoulders is less sure, less imposing. How often do the horns call you? she asks. And do you always answer them? They are personal, as they address his relationship with his Avatar. In another context, she would never ask after them. Arianna knows enough of the old stories to know in them that women are often objects, or objectives. She also knows that they are goddesses, and oracles, and keepers of ancient wisdoms. Women are powerful or powerless and there is not much room for them in between.

She will not be powerless. This leaves only one other option.

This is a conversation for the edge of air and darkness, for the covering of night, for the pricking of starlight or the wide wash thrown by the moon. They have none of those comforts, bathed as they are in the unrepentant light of the first Spring morning. He is bare beneath the sheet, but she is wrapped in the raiments of their mortal lives. The distance burns him. She is bare and wounded before he who is a Hunter; wounded things are not long for this world when their predators are near. They are equally undone.

"If you don't come for me you will be like this ­­ your Hunt will end like this with another?" she is asking for clarification, but it is clear like sparkling glass and crystal in her eyes that she does not want him so completely with another. She never has; it calls forward echoes of finding Lucy in his suite at Conclave. Not so specifically, but it calls up echoes nonetheless. "And if not someone within the circle, and also not me, then the Hunt will find an egress somewhere ­­ and that I cannot abide. Not for that unknowing someone, and also not for you. It wrongs you."

She looks down, and the sweep of her lashes hides her eyes from him for a moment. This is not purely about rationalizing an unconscionable thing; there are other feelings and wants muddying the water. Aside from want, few things have ever been unmuddied between them. It is no surprise.

"I... I like that you chose me over the other in the circle. More than like. I'm more than pleased; it is an ardent thing in my breast, not pleased but closer to glorified." Ah, yes, the Hermetic ego. Though hers has been quieter than some. "And I like even, in ways I do not understand, the thought you were overcome with need of me and no other. I do not, did not, mind the insistence or even," there is a small flush of color to her cheeks that has more to do with embarrassment than shame, "The forcefulness. But I do mind the not knowing; the fear of not knowing whether you would come back to me. I do not believe for a moment that your Hunt cares for me.

"But I know that you do." Her hands are not still now. They are a little shaky. Everything in her conscious mind is fighting what she is about to say "You must promise me that you will come for me after. You will always come for me after. Never so spent or so consumed again that you cannot find me on your own." Arianna does not cry. It would be a good time for tears, but none prick at the corners of her eyes. She will not be weak in demanding this of him.

[Silas]

There are answers: Sometimes once a month to a lesser Hunt, every quarter and cross quarter day, not all rites are Great and so on. He has been with others in the name of the Rite, but always inside the circle ­ and he's never certain in which level of reality they reside, only that they are Other, more so than either he or his Star, and that they have ever been willing, knowing participants. The labyrinth at Samhain is different than the sowing at the equinox or the fires of Beltaine. In this part of the conversation, Arianna learns more of Silas and his paradigm, the way he's been taught in their times apart, than she ever might have otherwise.

She also learns that over him, she was never powerless. On some level, perhaps it was that power that drew him back to her last night, in the darkest of times (a star as guiding light).

"I suspect," he offers, and it's a low, quiet thing, "that I chose you before I knew there was a you to choose. Perhaps He did as well, for every Hunt needs a guiding Star, does it not? I have always come back to you."

And in their history, as stuttered and stalled as it is, this is true; though they have spent longer apart than together, and much of their together time has been tainted with anger and a lack of communication, he has always found his way to her ­ or she to him, as the case may be. And yes, he is far better at being vulnerable when the circumstances call for such; even in it, there is the air of his upbringing, his place in Order society, but the pride [hubris] that guides so many of them is, for the moment, lacking.

"I asked you, once, why that was ­ do you remember?" But that's not so important, really, and now? Now, he stands and moves to her side, the sheet still wrapped around his hips as he carefully, gently, places a hand on her shoulder. "I do care for you, more than I understand. More than reason dictates I should. But what you ask of me ­ it holds the demands of a stronger Oath between us in the near future than 'when we are together', because I don't think I can make such a promise unless you are fully, always, forever mine. That you will not leave and strike me from your life again, as we have both done in the past. Given how close I know you to play your cards, it will seem rather sudden to everyone you know."

With, of course, the possible exception of her parents, who may or may not have been watching this situation develop since Arianna and Silas were children. This game may have began before the offering of flowers and treasure maps, after all.

"Are you ready for such things, my Stella?"

[Arianna]

The Hunt is clever, and it moves within his words and actions even now. It seeks to bind her to him for the bounds she has tried to impose on it. But Arianna is also driven by older things, the sort of old and heady magicks that drive men to their doom; she could be Helen of Troy, or the Lorelei; she could launch men on their ships or also beach them on the shoals and cliffs. She is not kind and neither is she always patient, but she is clever and cunning and mercurial in the oldest ways. The Hunt within Silas will know her best as the Leannansidhe, and it will think it has the better of her; it will never know that they are well and truly matched.

Sometimes a once a month, he says, and quick as fire flickers in a breeze she dismisses it. It is weighed and slides past her, this opening feint in their negotiations. "Each month is too often. I will not bend to that." This is said easily, as she rises from the divan to stretch, having sat too long in one position, having let the coldness settle too deeply in her bones. Up and up she stretches, and it bares a pale crescent of olive­hued skin at her waist, where the sweep of her sweater does not meet the rise of her slacks. It is incidental, of course, this showing of skin, this tease and when she lowers her arms again she smooths her hands over her middle, smooths the fabric down and over and this glimpse is hidden again from view. It is a thing denied him.

This is not mindful, or is it? Arianna is tricksy in the worst of ways.

"Though once a season I could abide," she says, thoughtful, moving slightly to further shake the tension from her frame. She paces, but idly. As if she were more feline than human, as if there were some inward grace to her after all. She paces as she lays the boundaries of this binding around the Hunt, and so taken with the watching of her it may be that it might not seem to notice. Not when there is the line of her to mark, the way the palm of her hand presses against the side of her neck as she thinks. The way it calls his attention up to her bust, to the strength of her features, to the mouth that shapes these small concessions, and that mouth twists, wrily, an echo of the warmth between them, echoing even now: "And perhaps on birthdays."

Which calls to mind, of course, the first of times they were together.

It is no surprise to her that on one of her nearer transits he rises; that he reaches out to break the distance between them and place his hand on her shoulder. It should not surprise him either that she turns toward it. That she does not dodge the contact or shirk his nearness. She is drawing the lines to define their newness in each other; she is deft at this; almost as deft as were she drawing them with ink and paper. Her eyes are not angry when they find his now, the green of summer grass against the blue wash of the sky.

"I am the wronged party here," she tells him, but the heat of anger is gone from it. The heat of something else is brimming, kept just restrained but shown enough to peak the interest of his Otherness. It is a dangerous play; it is one only she could make. "And I am making concessions of my Will and body; taking in the darker parts of you. I have not turned from you this morning, or left you in your cold bed alone without opportunity for explanation. And you would ask of me further bindings? Today, Silas Owen... you would ask them of me this morning?"

The words are deliberate. She takes him in ­­ it calls up echoes ­­ she evokes her body ­­ and in its nearness, always echoes ­­ and in these base and simple things she speaks through him to the call of Wyld buried in his breast. She has offered it more than it had right to expect: each season, and birthdays. She has offered it a bright and shining Star as tribute. It knows, even if Silas doesn't, the quarry it has challenged and met. It knows the risk in over­reaching; to take too much too fast and lose the prize entirely. It knows, too, the hope that resides within the swell of her belly ­­ that she may be well and truly caught already, that she is His (and his) whatever words play across the surface on this day.

And then, the boom of it, lowered slowly on him and the Hunt, like the lowering of her lashes make this admission a thing sacred, quiet and unexpected. It is most definitely not an Oath, and it is most definitely not binding, though it is hard to say if either side of him might care as it is undeniably honest; excruciatingly true in all measurements. The greatest tools of deceptions are those that cut to the quick; that bear no trace of misdirection:

"It wounds me that you could think there would be any other for me."

It is most definitely not an Oath, but does that truly matter?

[Silas]

Silas' hand rests on Arianna's shoulder and she stills then turns to him; idly, unconsciously, his arms move around her and he pulls her close, hands coming to rest over her stomach. Touch lingers there, warm and life giving when its applied to dirt and seed or bulb, but not yet so adept with more complex organisms ­ even if he harbored a conscious desire to encourage his Life to take root in her, he couldn't do so. Not yet. What he can do as he holds her so, though, larger and encircling her, guarding her, is realize some things.

Though she was wronged . . .
Though she was afraid . . .

Arianna is still his. She is still here with him, in his arms, taking him in (and yes, there are stirrings, though Silas is well and truly himself now ­ Silas the Man is well and truly in control) and invoking her body. She is calling to the Wyld in his breast. Though he does not back down from his statement of need for a more binding Vow, neither does he reiterate it; his arms around her, his hands over a stomach that may grow heavy with his Life soon, he knows it's enough (for now). There are Echoes . . .

"Forgive me, Stella. In time." There are no intimations of the need to forgive himself as well, though she's seen it there in him. And yes, there are implications that it's done? But there are old rules, old laws. He still has to ask. He also has to say, "I will guard you when you cannot. I will keep you safe when you are not strong. We are bound deeper than our words can portray, regardless of how we frame them."

[Arianna]

He has to say it, because she needs to hear these things. It is what she has been asking of him, most truly. Not that Arianna pretends dependence on any others, this is part of her cavalier charm. Nick has called her out on her mistrusting ways, and she has glibly ignored him. It is difficult to glibly ignore Silas, with his warmth wrapped around her, as she subconsciously relaxes into his embrace. There is hope in her that he will slip his chin over her shoulder, so that the point of it rests in the hollow of her collarbone. That holding her this way, from behind, with his arms bare against the soft of her sweater (a scent that echoes faintly the lanolin of his kilt the night before), he will afford her this structure of safety that his words promise.

It is her way of acquiescing to his requests. Forgive me. Her hands cover his, slide past them as she wraps her arms over his across her middle. They are, indeed, bound by deeper things than their words portray and this realization has come upon them suddenly. A few days ago they saw each other anew for the first time in a coffee shop, and here at the dawn of Spring there is intimation of engagements and other, deeper things. This is more than she had intended when she came over to see him; more than she had known she was offering when she brought food and wine to feed his host of roommates. More, even, that she would have suspected when she followed him to bed and laid breathless beside him.

"Then guard me now, for I have spent all the strength in me to stay when I was frightened, to hear when I would not. Keep me safe, and keep me close." There is more to say but Arianna has run out of words. Her voice is still a little raw; her will is spent a little low. She craves the comfort that he offers, to shelter the scared and wounded places in her behind some greater bulwark against the storm. The snow is piled high outside the walls of his keep. They do not keep to the cycles of Sleeper work weeks or holidays. There is no reason she must leave, if he will give her ample reason to stay.

[Silas]

As Arianna relaxes, Silas' chin does dip over her shoulder, into the hollow of her collarbone. His breath is warm and steady where it blows over her, and his stubble is scratchy­soft against her cheek. The arms her hands slide over, her arms come to rest on, are marked with ink ­ they tell the story of a Hunter, of a follower of a Star. When last she saw him, Silas was tattooed, but not to this extent ­ last night when they first laid to sleep beside each other she saw more ink on him than this, but perhaps didn't take in its extent, its level of detail. Perhaps now, she looks past it blindly.

"I am here. And I will hold you as long and as close as you desire."

There is more to say, but these are all the words that matter. After holding Arianna here, so, for immeasurable minuteshoursdays ­ when they are both tired of standing here, still ­ there is breakfast. Or lunch. And then there is sleep and mending.

There is some level of peace.